Yep, I think you've hit the nail on the head here. I've worked with a lot of colleagues that could implement features faster than me, polish off more story poin

Yep, I think you've hit the nail on the head here. I've worked with a lot of colleagues that could implement features faster than me, polish off more story points, or wreck me on whatever the metric of the day is, but if we were both CTOs of startups in the same market I wouldn't even break a sweat worrying about them (from a tech perspective). Most businesses don't have access to top talent and they know it. Most businesses are specifically trying to create an environment where devs are interchangeable, and optimising their processes for the 50th percentile dev (if that). If you do your measurements within that context then of course 10xers don't exist. But when it's John Carmack vs Scrum Legend #34598295 1v1 on Final Destintation with No Items, I know who I'm betting the house on.